Come see Daniel Webster's restored horse-drawn carriage in Marshfield

Thursday

Jun 12, 2014 at 7:58 AMJun 12, 2014 at 8:31 AM

The restored 19th C. buggy that famed orator and senator Daniel Webster drove will be unveiled on Sunday July 6 at a special event, Presenting the Phaeton, at the Daniel Webster House in Marshfield from 1 to 4 p.m. The 1880 mansion will be open that day for tours. The horse-drawn carriage has been repaired, repainted, re-upholstered and "looks new and terrific," Mickey Carr says.

The restored 19th C. buggy that famed orator and senator Daniel Webster drove will be unveiled on Sunday July 6 at a special event, "Presenting the Phaeton," at the Daniel Webster House in Marshfield from 1 to 4 p.m.

The 1880 mansion will be open that day for tours.

The horse-drawn carriage, or "Phaeton," has been repaired, repainted, re-upholstered and "looks new and terrific," Mickey Carr, board member of the Daniel Webster Conservation Trust, says.

The restoration work was done by John Mikkola of The Olde Woodwright Shop in Hampden, MA.

The buggy was awarded to the Trust in 2012 by Dartmouth College. Mikkola performed minor frame and wheel repairs, paint restoration and carriage reupholstering.

In the course of his work, the Trust reported, Mikkola found the axles to be manufactured by H.Ives, which suggests a link to the Mt. Carmel Axle Works, New Haven, Connecticut, established in 1833 by Frederic Ives.

While he found no maker name on the carriage itself, Mikkola did find the number 11 on the body and irons. He suggests the most likely maker is Brewster & Company of New York, whose carriages were manufactured in New Haven. The Trust also did research through the Carriage Association of America.

In 1820, Webster drove his former Congressional colleague, John C. Calhoun, then secretary of war, on a tour of the arsenal at Watertown and the two "had a tete-a-tete in a phaeton, and they understand one another" according to one historical account.